I’m A Crab Apple May 29, 2007

I hate being so moody!!!  

I am a crabby apple today.  I guess this wouldn’t be so bad if there were an actual REASON for being a crabby apple!!  I just get in these moods at times I guess.  I don’t understand it, and to be perfectly honest, I wish it would go away. 

I have dealt with borderline personality disorder for years now.  If I had to say when I GOT the disorder, I would think it was around 15, when I first started cutting I guess.  I had all the other symptoms of it I guess, but the cutting is what really threw it over the edge.  

I was not in therapy at the time, I didn’t first enter professional therapy until perhaps a year or so later, at 16.  Late in my 16th year.  I didn’t get diagnosed with the disorder until I was 20.  

My first diagnosis was depression, just give her anti-depressants and she will be fine.  My first therapist sent me off a year later to college saying I would be fine.  She listed me as not in need of therapy anymore.  

Oh REALLY!  

I guess if you don’t SPEAK to your therapists… they don’t really KNOW whats going on.  What a silly thought.  

My secondary diagnosis was PTSD, stemming from the abuse I endured from the time I was nine until my fourteenth birthday.  Abuse I endured from my cousin.  I wish I could say he is an evil being, but this just isn’t true.  He isn’t inherently evil, just messed up in the head.  He was in a car accident when he was two, and hasn’t been ‘normal’ since.  He just doesn’t have the brain capacity to understand that what he did was wrong.  

At least this is how its always explained to me.  He didn’t have the brain capacity. 

Doesn’t make me any less f^*ked up because of it.  

Oh well, I learned to deal with it, just as I learned to deal with just about everything else that’s been handed my way.  
I got the diagnosis of borderline at 20 years old, when I was landed in a day treatment program in a psychiatric hospital after threatening to kill myself.  Whew, I’m just spilling it all today.  I will never forget that day… the day I handed a note to my boss explaining I wasn’t going to be at work for two weeks… because I was going to the hospital.  “why?” “whats going on, are you ok?  Why do you have to go to the hospital?” 

Oh yeah, I am fine, just crazy thats all.

And for the first time, something in my life made sense.  Borderline Personality Disorder.  Finally!  Finally someone was telling me something that I had know a long long time. 

I was one screwed up individual.  

And I finally had a name to put to it,  BPD. 

After that I read every book I could find on the subject, everything I could read, everything I could discover that might help me get through this.  For everything that I am, I have always been a fighter.  

I met my current therapist there too, thank god for that.  Very few things in my life have ever gone smoothly, but finding my therapist, and finding my biological mother were among the two easiest.  

After that, life hasn’t been a pancake, in fact, going through therapy has been probably even harder than living with myself the way I was.  The thing is, I knew I COULDN’T live with myself the way I was.  I knew I wouldn’t survive it.  

Finding out I had BPD gave me hope, it gave me hope because while it is one of the most difficult mental illnesses to treat, it is treatable, curable if you will.  

Only there is no magic cure, there is no ‘maintenece’ to being borderline, no medications that can fix the symptoms.  Just a whole hell of a lot of hard work.  

And I have worked hard, very hard.  Gone places I never wanted to go, spoke things that I never wanted to speak.  
Learning to live with BPD is like learning to live all over again, starting from the beginning. 

You have to learn new coping mechanisms, you have to learn new relationship strategies.  You have to learn, basically, how to be a normally functioning adult.  Because with BPD, thats one of the biggest things that’s missing, that whole normally functioning thing.  

Granted, even at my worst, I was always high functioning.  I held a job, I lived on my own.  I had relationships, crazy messed up relationships, but relationships none the less.  

Things have changed so much.  So much that sometimes it is scary to me.  So much that when these little tail ends of the BPD still get to me, its frustrating.  Its frustrating to no end.  

This moodiness is frustrating to no end.  When there is so much else going on in your life its hard to see being moody for what it really is.  When you spend every day swinging from one extreme to the other, its hard to see the forrest through the trees.  

Now I see the forrest, and the trees.  I see my life, and I see myself.  I guess thats where the frustration comes in.  I wish I could kick the last of this thing.  Its like that last 10 pounds you just can’t lose, or the last flecks of dirt you just CAN’T get in the dustpan.  

Perhaps it is just something I am always going to have to deal with.  Perhaps it will fade as time goes on, or I will learn to deal with it more.  

Perhaps its just because this whole adoption/reunion thing really kicked up a LOT of those little flecks of dirt that don’t want to go in the dustpan.  However, this whole adoption/reunion was like that last step for me.  I NEEDED to get through this so I could move on.  I needed to meet her so I could find myself.  So its hard for me to know if that’s all the rest of this is, the final bit, or some kicked up dirt. 

Perhaps it is just me.  I am not sure.  

Whatever it is, you can bet I will learn to deal with it. 

The ugly duckling and the beautiful swan… or giraffe… or goose May 28, 2007

I feel like my life has been a journey.  I suppose this is the same for anyone really, life really is just a journey.  However I feel as if the discovery of me has been a journey.

I don’t know if this is normal, I suppose its another one of the delights of dealing with Borderline Personality Disorder… but whatever.   Discovering me has been a journey, most of the time I am still unsure of exactly who I am, what I like and what I dislike.  I am getting much better at this, and I have figured a lot of me out.

I think adoption, in many ways, strips adoptee’s of the very basis of the people that they are.  As an adoptee I was stripped of the ability to look at someone else around me and understand where I came from.  I understand that a lot of unadopted people do not necessarily ‘fit’ in their biological families, I understand that this world isn’t perfect. 

However, many times I feel like I was the ugly duckling…

And it turns out I wasn’t even a duckling after all. 

I am a swan, or a goose… or a giraffe… or a hippo or something.

Regardless… I was always just one weird looking duckling. 

Turns out though, for as frustrating as it is to be the ugly duckling, I still like my duck family. 

I like it even more now that I understand that I wasn’t an ugly duckling!!! 

Now I am just my own person. 

One of my favorite things about this fight, this fight to find myself, is that I can honestly say that the likes and dislikes I have are because I decided that I liked or disliked them.  Not because I had an outside influence telling me I liked it. 

Through this recovery process, through this life journey, I have discovered a lot of things.  One of them is that I am who I am, and I can either accept it, or fight it.  However, I have also learned that fighting who I am accomplishes completely nothing, and in all reality, fighting myself is a waste of time.  I suppose I should re word this to fighting the things I cannot change about myself.  Or berating myself for not fighting the things I can change… its kinda the same concept, its a waste of time. 

Instead, I put that energy into discovering the things about me that I can change, finding the things about me that make me actually apreciate being alive. 

Discovering the things that make me appreciate this world I live in. 

I can honestly say that there are times where I appreciate that I was adopted.  For as much as my life has been a struggle, for as much as adoption stripped me of the very basis of the person that I am.  I have found a much better person inside.  I don’t think I would have ever found that person if I hadn’t been adopted.  If I hadn’t had the experiences and the life that I did have. 

Whether it is all part of a larger plan, or just the way life is, adoption has become something that I have learned to accept, even embrace. 

It has helped me discover who I truly am inside, because it was never handed to me.  It was never given to me the way it is for most people, I instead, had to fight for it.  You know what?  I really don’t mind.  I am a thinker, I think about everything, all the time.  I think if I didn’t have some kind of mental challenge I would be bored, I would sink into a hole deeper than anything I have ever been in. 

I believe that I have prospered from it, because I had to fight so hard for it.  Its like the rich spoiled kids who never have to fight for anything, who never have to learn the concept of fending for themselves.  I can honestly say that I am the person that I am today due to nothing other than me and my ability to fight. 

I have gone from a chronically suicidal, self injuring borderline, to someone who can sit out outside my apartment complex with my cat on his leash and honestly say I like who I am, and I like the life I live.

It turns out I don’t mind life so much after all. 

Remembering a time… May 21, 2007

Not sure why I feel the need to share this story, but its my blog, and I can write what I wish

I had my first big pregnancy scare at 16. 

The story is an interesting one, so I shall tell it. 

It all started with my first bad boy attraction.  He was tall, big and handsome with the best curls you have ever seen.  Jet black curls.  His name was Mike, and he sat next to me in Spanish class.  I had Spanish in first period in my junior year (I took four years of French, then went back to Spanish one to avoid having to take french five).  Since it was my first class it was my makeup time period.  No I don’t mean makeup like pretty little eyeliner and blush… oh no, I was NEVER one of those girls.  Mine was all black, and my mother, determined not to have a dark and depressed daughter, forbade me from wearing it.  So in first period on went all the black makeup, the eyeliner, the black lipstick… all that jazz.  Out came the black sharpie for my nails.  One day Mike asked if he could borrow my sharpie.  It was then that I noticed him, and he had the bluest of blue eyes that totally contrasted with his dark hair.  Instant attraction. 

From there, we met up every morning to smoke on the corner.  We would talk, about things, life whatever.  We would smoke and walk into school together to go to first period Spanish.  He told me that he was attracted to the goth types… and well, I was attracted to the bad, dark, curly haired types.  From then on we had a wonderful relationship of skipping school and getting into trouble as is always fun.  (I really, really was never a good girl). 

He started talking to me about sex, before that, it wasn’t really a thought in my mind.  My first response was no, absolutely not.  But then I started thinking, well really, why not?  I liked him a lot, in those days I thought I loved him.  I figured it would be perfect, and after all, if I had sex with him he would stick around longer. 

Prom night came, we never actually considered ourselves a ‘couple’  he wasn’t my boyfriend, I wasn’t his girlfriend.  I really wanted to be his girlfriend.  We ended up going with a bunch of friends, none of us ‘couples’… all of us doing more than just holding hands.  Even the girls were comfortable enough with each other to allow ourselves to explore. 

We left from my house, and my mother wanted us back by 1:00 am.  Enough time to go to the prom, stay there till it ended and then go out for Ice cream or something.  I swear my mother still lived in the fifties or something, Ice cream? 

She even sewed me into my prom dress… she told me it was “just in case the zipper came loose”  I wasn’t stupid, I knew better. 

We stayed at the prom for about an hour, enough time to get our pictures taken and dance a little.  Then we all left.  We were three not dating couples, all of us good friends, and all of us really, really comfortable with each other.  We had our limo drive us to the local grocery store where we picked up strawberries, whipped cream, and chocolate syrup… sans the ice cream.   After a ride around in the limo we settled down at the beach.  Where I managed to rip myself out of my sewn in prom dress and give the one last good girl thing I had to my then not quite boyfriend.  (My mother actually believe the bs about how I ripped my dress, totally ignoring the fact I was wearing my dates undershirt. My dad on the other hand, wasn’t so stupid, especially when I was found on my hammock with a red headed curly haired boy named Jay who wasn’t my date! Not doing the deed btw… I wasn’t THAT bad!)

After that sex was a weapon.  I used it to get the love and attention I thought I wanted.  All of a sudden, these boys that have been around me, now REALLY wanted to be around me.  I was happy that I didn’t have that ‘boyfriend’ thing with Mike… because it left me free to be around Jay too. 

Two weeks later, I realized that there was a minor detail to all this fun and enjoyment.  I should have gotten my period, and I hadn’t.

All I could think of was shit.  Shit shit shit Jessie.  Did you not think?  Did you not think about the fact that the woman who gave birth to you did the exact same thing? 

Like I have said before, adoption was never (I thought) a big issue for me, but it was still there.  All I could think about was, oh god, this is how it happened.   This is how I happened! 

Of course I was also thinking… well this could be a good thing, Mike will have to stick around if I have a baby!  I was determined I loved him, I was also determined that we were going to fall in love and get married and raise this baby together. 

I was however, smart enough to know life didn’t work that way.  Plus if it came out a red head, I would be screwed… Jay was a redhead, not Mike. 

What the hell did I get myself into. 

All I could remember thinking was what I would do if I were pregnant. 

I knew adoption was not an option.  I couldn’t do it, I wouldn’t do it.  I wouldn’t as an adoptee who had no clue where I came from, then give up my child to have no clue where they came from.  I couldn’t imagine looking out at the stars at night and wondering where my mother, and my child, were.  Couldn’t do it.

I couldn’t have an abortion, even though thats what Mike insisted I would be doing if I were pregnant.

I also knew, in my heart, I couldn’t keep it.   I was in no way, and no how ready to be a mother at 16… 17 by the time the child was born.  No way with all the constant fighting in my house, the constant depression and self distruction I was in, no way could I keep that child.   In my daydream land, Mike and I would have gotten married, we would have had that perfect life, I would have been his, and he would have been mine, the baby would have been ours. 

If only the world were perfect.

What a freaking decision to make.  I had plenty of sleepless nights about it. 

Two negative pregnancy tests later, I got my period.  I don’t think I was ever happier in my life.  I ran into school and hugged Mike, told him the news… and he asked if we could go use a friends hot tub to… ya know… oh the mentality of teenagers!

I don’t know what I would have decided, but I know it would have been a hell of a hard choice.  I hopeI would have been stong enough to make a decision in the best interest of the child. 

I forgot about those thoughts and feelings, and the many more times after (you would think I would have learned).   Until just recently when I started thinking about my life, and where I have come.  How easy it is to make decisions that affect everything.  Whats even scarier is the fact that I wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for a decision that affected everything. 

How easy it is to judge.  However, its not so easy to walk in the shoes of those we are judging. 

The Ramblings of Me May 20, 2007

I am a thinker.  Sometimes I think that I just think too much. 

I am a thinker, but not a decider… I am terrible at making up my mind about things.  Some people have their ways so set, if you ask them a question, it doesn’t take them a million years to answer because they have to think of all sides of the issue first, they just answer.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be one of those people. 

However, I am not. 

I think therefore I am… some philosopher said that, can’t remember for the life of me which one.  But I guess that’s what it comes down to for me, I think, therefore I am. 

I am…

I am something…  Just not real sure all the time what that something is. 

The thing about me is I refuse to let other people decide my life for me.  Decide where we are going to dinner?  Fine by me, I don’t like making those kinds of decisions… don’t like making any decisions really.  However, if it involves me, my life, and what I believe in.  I am the only one to decide that. 

I was brought up in the Lutheran church… and yet, with the exception of mothers day, haven’t set foot in a church in years.  I don’t believe in church, but I do believe in God.  I am not sure exactly how my belief in God works, I haven’t gotten that far yet, but I do know… oh about since the day that my Meemo and I (sorta) watched the northern lights together, I knew that there had to be some larger force out there.  I knew there was something, something bigger than me, bigger than anything.  And there was no way it could all just be a fluke.  So I decided, truly and undeniably decided, that night that I believed in God.  Still trying to work out the details on it, but I do believe.

I also, after meeting my Meemo, believe in fate.  I believe in destiny as well.  I do however, also believe there is a freedom of choice.  I do not think that there is this concrete path lain out before us all.  That the choices and decisions we make were already in place, I do not believe that.  I can’t, I have worked far too hard and done far too much for myself to believe that there is some upper hand in that.  I do however, believe that destiny and fate give us a path to walk.  A path with many decisions along the way, and many things that lead to another.  I believe there was some sort of destiny that lead me to the place I am in my life right now.  That I had to make the decisions along the way, but that there were almost like a set of invisible doors in front of me.  As soon as I completed the correct task, made the right decisions, the door opened. 

I also believe I am here for a reason.  I have absolutely no idea what that reason is, or if I will ever know what that reason is.  But I do know, somewhere, somehow, in the divine intervention there is a reason for me, and a reason for my life.  Do I think that it is something fantastic and amazing?  I highly doubt it, but somewhere, somehow, there is a reason for me.  I wouldn’t have survived as long as I have without it.  I wouldn’t have even been born without it. 

I also believe, that I was adopted for a reason.  I know this may sound silly to those of you who are also going through the fun times of being an adoptee.  I am not saying that I love the fact that I am adopted.  I guess what I am saying is I don’t DISLIKE the fact that I am adopted.  I decided this, finally, last night.  I was sitting out on my old trampoline in the house I grew up in, doing the thing I am famous(at least to myself) for doing too much of.  Thinking.  I was thinking about my life, where I have been, and where I am going.  I decided that I was adopted for a reason, and I need to stop questioning that.  After all, questioning it accomplishes nothing.  It happened, its over.  Most of all, I am who I am because my Meemo, my mother, decided that she needed to give me a better chance.  And a better chance I had.  I am thankful for that.  I am thankful for a few reasons, one being I wouldn’t be the person I am today, and two, because I wouldn’t know all my siblings, I wouldn’t know my father and my sister, who needs me more than anything. 

I wouldn’t be the fighter that I am.  I have had a lot of experiences in life to fight, and it taught me very well how to be strong.  To so many I appear weak, I am emotional, I am a spazzy mess sometimes.  However, above all these things, I am a fighter. 

I used to want to be as strong as my Meemo.  I realized as of late, I already am.

Just a note to add May 17, 2007

Just a little note to add to my previous blog entry….

I guess I forget that none of you really know me, don’t know where I have come from, or where I have been.  The fact that I CAN be happy is a bit of a miracle. 

I am happier, more well adjusted and better feeling than I have been in years and years.  I am also no more depressed than I ever have been.  Anyone who has ever dealt with true depression knows that even a day out of it is a good day. 

I have a great many good days, a great many.  I am more ok now than I have been in a long, long time.  Its just those little dark places, I see them, I recognize them.  Sometimes I can even talk myself out of them.  I experience a million other moods along the way. 

I guess I am just fed up with those that come out of no where.  However, dealing with BPD is a long road, one I have traveled for a long time. 

And thank goodness, one I have come a long way on.  One that I have finally seen a lot more brighter days

Its just those pesky pissy Eeyore moods that get in the way!   But Eeyore is cute, I can handle being an Eeyore some days

The happy world and the Dark place May 17, 2007

I hate being so emotional!

Its terrible, it really is.  There is medications for depression, but there is no magic pill for being moody.  I am a moody moody joody. 

The thing is, I can never really pin point why!  Its just a bit agrivating I guess, because I can be so happy, then next thing you know I am sitting at home thinking a million different things. 

My perceptions of people change as my moods change as well.  When I am in a good, happy mood, nothing really touches me.  I can see the big picture through all the trees, and I am so much less worried about what everyone else in the world thinks of me.  I can sit there and say, I am me!  I am me and I like me and thats all there is to it. 

Then when I am down, its like b l a h.   I feel a bit like Eeyore, no energy to even speak above a mope.  I want to walk around slumped over and curl up in a tiny ball somewhere.  Then I get mad because I CAN’T curl up in a tiny ball and feel even worse about everything.  Its so frustrating! 

What does this have to do with adoption?  Not much… everything. 

My feelings about adoption change with my ever changing moods.  In a good mood, all is great.  Adoption is… well adoption, and I have my place for it.  I have my place for my Meemo, I have my place for everything adoption wise.  Just as accepting as I am of my self, I am as accepting of adoption.  In a down mood however, I feel differently.  I start to revert back to those paranoid feelings of “am I doing this right?”  “did I do this wrong?”  ” did I say the right thing?”  “am I being too annoying?”  all that crap.  The thing is, I don’t want any of that crap anymore!  Its like I have two different sides of my mind!  The annoying crazy one and the happy grown up adjusted one. 

I suppose its a good thing I can recognize it… but how does one go about getting rid of it?

Even if I could just make it like… less dark or something.  Less moody!  If it weren’t so severe.  I get that everyone has moods, but come ON there is a point here!   A point where I don’t need to be miserable out of no where for no reason!

If I could just be the happy grown up adjusted one all the time, I would be good to go!  I wouldn’t need much of anything, and hell, you would be amazed at the things I can accomplish then! 

Its like these little leftover bits of borderline that just wont seem to go away.  No matter how much therapy I go through, no matter how much I change myself, no matter what.  Its just there.   I guess its just a part of me that I am going to have to learn to accept and deal with.

Its just frustrating, it really is.  In moods like that I want to find a miserable hole to sink into.  I want to sit and blast about how everything is terrible and life isn’t worth it and just give up.  I want to stand with a giant anti adoption sign and protest the world.  Who knows, I could wake up in the morning and feel great.   Then I will find my whoo hoo I am ok happy place and live there for a little while.   I will believe everything in the world is great, colors are brighter, life is better, everything is A ok. 

Then the dark place, the dark place that reminds me I was given up.  The dark place that reminds me that I tread on thin ice on pretty much every relationship I have ever had, particularly the one with my Meemo.  The dark place that makes me want to call her up and say “hey, I am a spaz, are we ok?”  The thing is, I know what the answer will be.  I know it will be yes. 

So why why why do I get in these dark places?  Why do I fall into that hole, seemingly out of no where? I don’t understand it, but it gets to the point where I just don’t know what to do with it!

Now that I know what happy feels like, I don’t really want that sad place anymore! 

Instead of finding a toilet and flushing adoption, I would like to find a toilet and flush that place in my head!  

So… If anyone has a magic wand I could borrow for a little while, that would be fantastic… just let me know!

WordPress doesn’t like me! May 16, 2007

I can’t comment on blogs… I have no idea why… I can’t even comment on my own.  T’is quite frustrating and I am feeling a little depressed about it. 

Perhaps someone has had this problem and knows what to do about it? 

Hopefully now, the whirlwind stops May 14, 2007

In the aftermath (I hope) of one of the largest and most complicated storms of my life, all I can hope for is that the winds have finally calmed down.  In a way I want to knock on wood because lets face it, a whole lot more could happen.  To be honest, I am pretty thankful for what I’v got. 

In the last eight months I have

• Met my biological mother, discovered I have two brothers and reeled from the reactions of all that.  It was probably one of the biggest and most influential changes of my life.  They say having a baby changes everything, realizing, truly realizing, that you are adopted and what that really means is right up there.
• Fought with my biological mother, fought with the urges and emotions that come with being a borderline, that come with being adopted, that come with meeting someone with your face for the first time at 24 years old.
• Fought with my amother, found my voice, acknowledged to her that, YES mom, I was abused, YES mom, it did hurt me and YES mom, I am done having it not be recognized, I am done keeping quiet, I am done SEEING him. Period.  I stood up to her for the very first time in my life. 
• Learned to respect my afather, learned to appreciate everything that he is, and understand everything that he isn’t.    
• Made huge decisions regarding my life, finances and schooling.   Decided that I needed to take a break from it all, needed to take a break for ME.  In doing so, learned that remaining calm in tough situations may be hard, but I can do it, and its the best thing to do. 
• Learned to respect myself!  Learned that its ok for me to BE myself, learned that the person that I am is ok, faults and all.  Learned to be that person, no matter what another person may say, and that thats ok too.  Its ok not to make everyone happy, its ok that everyone doesn’t like me. 
• Learned to respect others, that even if I don’t think I like a person, doesn’t mean I know who they truly are.  Everyone deserves a chance, everyone deserves that moment. 
• Learned that communication is key to everything, and if everyone could sit down and really speak what is going on, that the world might be a better place, and we all might just get along. 
• Learned that my amother isn’t perfect, but it isn’t black and white.  I learned to have a voice, and for the first time in my life said something to my mother that she listened to.  I said ‘mom, I don’t need you’ and meant it.  I told her that I couldn’t take everything anymore and meant it.  I taught my mother that I am an adult, capable of making my own adult decisions.  That the person that I am is the person that I am and nothing is going to change that.  That she can either accept me, or let it go, because I can’t take the hurting and nastyness anymore.  We let it go, and started over. 
• I bought a brand new car, lord knows how I am going to pay for it, but with my afathers, and my amothers help, I bought a new car in no ones name but my own. 
• I learned to put adoption in its place, to accept that I am going to have a lot of feelings because of it, but that the what ifs are about as useful to me as a bicycle is to a fish.   I have two families, and each has its own traits, and that its unfair to expect from either what they cannot give. 
• I learned to grow up, to accept things that I can’t change, and realize that with hard work, I can change the things that I can. 

I am only 24 years old, and for the first time, I have realized that I have pretty much my whole life in front of me.  I have a newfound respect for my amother, and an always there and newfound respect for my Meemo.   I was blessed with two mothers instead of one.  Each one of them has some very unique traits and I think that I am very lucky to be in both of their lives.  My children will be very lucky to have two such amazing and different grandmothers.  My amother is not a bad person, we just never quite understood each other.  We have different thoughts, and different beliefs and different ways of handling life.  Shes made some mistakes, but so have I.  Hopefully now we can go on to start something that actually makes sense to us. 

And my Meemo and I?  Hopefully we can keep going on something that makes sense to us too, after all, how often can you really meet someone who makes so much sense to you. 

Conversation can work wonders. May 13, 2007

I woke up this morning and I felt like evil Satan spawn.  I couldn’t believe that I had actually ditched my mother the day before mothers day.  Yes, we have a lot of issues, yes things have gotten out of control.

But regardless of all that she is my mother, and I do love her. 

I decided that instead of taking a break, maybe we could work this out.  Maybe we both need to work on things and try to change. 

So in the effort of my dramatic flair, I showed up at church (quite amazing, I havn’t set foot in one in years) and got down on one knee with lilacs and tulips stolen from a field and apologized to my mother in front of everyone there.  She was so happy she cried, my grandmother I think was a bit embarrassed but oh well.  She cried and looked at me and said ‘are you kidding? Talk about instant gratification, I was just praying for you.”

So to make a long story short, we talked.  We talked, we respected each other, she respected me.  We both apologized for our wrongdoings.  We also both got to the heart of what makes us so nasty to each other to begin with.  She realized that she had made a lot of mistakes when it comes to me.  She apologized for a lot of them. 

We decided to put everything behind us and start over.  Honestly, I can do that.  I can do it, and hopefully she can too. 

So here’s starting my new relationship with my mom.  I couldn’t be happier. 

So Happy Mothers Day to all

Happy Mothers Day to you Mom May 12, 2007

I divorced my mom today.  My amother.

Ok, so I didn’t really ‘divorce’ her per say.  I just decided that we needed to take a break from each other.  I sort of feel so sick I could throw up.  I am trying my hardest to forget the days events and pretend like nothing is wrong, but I am having a heck of a time doing that. 

I have never really stood up to my mother, ever.  but she and I have had a toxic relationship probably since I was old enough to talk.  I don’t hate my mother, although sometimes I feel like I do.  But I don’t know how much I really love her either.  I guess I do, otherwise I wouldn’t feel like my world is falling apart before my eyes. 

If I didn’t love her I wouldn’t care that I hurt her feelings. 

However, I did hurt her feelings.  Its the day before mothers day, and I told her I need a break from her.  I told her this in the midst of yet another fight about yet another thing that she has let me down on. 

I have fought with her for years, fought her and fought her and never really stuck up for ME.  I always just compromised myself in the end.  Always put on my fake face and said its ok, I love you anyway.  Its ok that you verbally and mentally abuse me.  Its ok that you make me feel terrible about myself.  Its ok that you don’t follow through on the promises you make.  Its ok that you have no clue what I have been through. 

Well I am done telling her that its ok, I am done pretending that none of it matters. 

I tried to do it the civilized way, by conversation, but that didn’t work.  Nothing ever seems to work, the problem is she doesn’t see me as an adult.  She doesn’t listen to me as an adult.  One of the biggest problems is she doesn’t listen to me at all. 

Even in trying to talk to her through this problem, she just doesn’t listen.  My mother just wouldn’t hear what I had to say. 

Until I said ‘Mom, I am sorry, but I just can’t do this anymore.’  She stopped talking and listened then. 

I told her that I think we both need a break, that we obviously both stress eachother out to the max.  That we both need some time to ourselves to just live our lives.  I told her I loved her.  I got back a bunch of screams, a bunch of tears, and a lament that sounded more like something I would have cried out in high school to my running scared boyfriend. 

She switched between screaming and telling me that I am a selfish brat.  To crying and exclaiming that I have hurt her feelings, and she can’t believe that I am ‘leaving her!’  Yes, my mother was upset because I was ‘leaving’ her.  I tried to explain that I wasn’t leaving anywhere, I was just taking some time.  But again, no words of mine were heard, just more screams, more cries.  And the final note.

“fine, well thats just fine, I don’t need you anyway, have a great fucking life, happy fucking mothers day.”

I think that just about broke my heart, yes mom, Happy Mothers Day.   What a freaking twist of timing that all this had to happen right before Mothers day.  Call me a brat, call me a bi*#h I have been called both enough times today to suit me.  I guess I just couldn’t imagine going over there and celebrating the person that is her, and pretending everything was fine when it wasn’t. 

Now I am sitting here alone wondering if I made the right choice.  If I did the right thing.  My Mother has called me already.  Called me with a message that again just switched between screaming and being nasty, and making me feel bad with every trick she has in the book.  I guess it amazed me how much of a child my Mother is acting while I am trying so hard to grow up. 

I feel sick, I feel like curling into a hole and dying.  I feel like calling up my mommy crying exclaiming how sorry I am for being such a failure as a daughter, for hurting her feelings.  I feel like I just stabbed a knife through my own heart.  I can only imagine what she feels like. 

My hope is, that she takes some of this feeling and starts thinking about whats really going on.  And instead of seeing me as the horrible daughter, instead sees some of the things that need to change.  Instead sees that I am in fact an adult, not a child.  That I am my own person, and I don’t have to be someone else just to make her happy.  That I deserve to be respected. 

My mother does not respect me, if for nothing else, I hope this can accomplish that. 

I don’t want her out of my life forever, funny how when everything is fine, I don’t even pay attention to how much I talk to her.  But now that I’v decided to take a break from it all, I miss her more than ever. 

I guess what I miss most is the relationship we never had.  The one where she was my mother, and I was her daughter, and we loved each other unconditionally.  The one where I could talk to her about things, the one where I could count on her.  The one where I could be loved for the person that I am, instead of despised for all the things I do wrong.  The one where I could consider her my friend.

Honestly, none of this is even about being adopted.  Its about the relationship that could have been between a mother and her daughter, but wasn’t. 

Its about me finally standing up and saying, I am mature enough not to have to take this anymore.  I am mature enough to say I have had enough of the abuse. 

I just hope to God that I did the right thing.